


Worthy of the Titan's Spark

by Babykitsune9



Category: Bleach, Transformers (Bay Movies)
Genre: F/M, Female Kurosaki Ichigo, Holoforms (Transformers), Ichigo goes by a fake name for a while, Jazz - Freeform, Jazz lives, New to earth, Optimus-freeform, She spazes sometimes, The Autobots dote on their princess, The Autobots requisition her, Transformers Spark Bonds, eventual holoform sex, funny Ichigo, warrior ichigo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:35:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 15,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28398570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Babykitsune9/pseuds/Babykitsune9
Summary: I know that I already started a new Transfromers fic, but for some reason I didn't seem to like how it went. So I wrote this instead.She saved Jazz from certain death. And for that he could be nothing but grateful to her. Even if he didn't quite understand what a 'magical girl' was. Or just how important she would become to him and the others.But he would say this for the little human fem, she was interesting.
Relationships: Ichigo&Autobots, Jazz&Ichigo, optimus prime/ichigo kurosaki
Comments: 10
Kudos: 49





	1. Chapter 1

The city was under siege.

There was simply no other way to describe what was going on. It was just...pure _bedlam_! There were fires, explosions, buildings collapsing and toppling over like domino's everywhere she looked. The ground was shaking and breaking apart underneath people's feet.

As it was, she had already had to save several people from being crushed, burned, blown to bits- and being buried underneath tons upon _tons_ of asphalt, gravel, steel, glass and concrete.

At present she was attempting to evacuate the immediate area since what was happening hadn't quite reached where she was yet. And there were still hundreds of people- or more in the general vicinity that were _all_ in danger of being swept away by the chaos and killed.

However as an eighteen year old kid- and a girl, at that- people rarely listened to her when she tried to give them instructions. Even in such a horrible situation, older people still tended to show their asses by rolling their eyes at her and going their own way.

Of course it wasn't lost on her that those same people tended to wind up dead. And of course, their spirits whined about it. A lot. How could they not when she was obviously to blame for _their_ stupidity? I mean, it wasn't as if they had decided not to listen to her or anything.

But that was neither here nor there.

The ground was starting to shake more and more violently in the past minute or so. Indicating that danger was heading right for them all. And the nearly deafening screams of the trapped, injured and dying were beginning to overwhelm her.

She had just managed to grab an old man with a possibly broken leg and was running with him when something large and heavy sailed over their heads. The large shape cast a great shadow over them before she heard a loud crash overhead.

She barely had enough time to look up and see what the hell had just hit the building behind her when she saw several thousand tons of glass and warped and twisted metal begin to rain down on the unprotected people still running in the streets, looking for cover.

Gritting her teeth, she put on a sudden burst of speed- going from a normal human's running speed to that of her Soul Reaper form. The old man tucked under one of her arms barely had time to make a startled sound before she had him safely deposited outside of a hospital half a block away and then vanished into thin air.

She made it back to her former position just in time to use the Santen Kisshun to create a barrier. Hopefully one of the strongest one's that she could muster under such circumstances.

It was able to catch a majority of the glass and steel. But some bits and pieces still pierced the barrier regardless of her efforts. She flinched and squeezed her eyes shut at the sight of one of the people she'd been trying to protect being cleaved in half by a large piece of glass.

Their blood and organs spilling all over the pavement, some of it spattering across her face and shirt. While the others that she'd managed to actually save from a similar fate, all looked on and screamed in _horror_.

Once the threat of more falling debris was over, she let the barrier fall and told everyone to run. Thankfully, not many of them needed to be told more than once. But some of the others needed more prompting.

Something that she easily managed by lighting a fire under their asses by pointing out to them that if they didn't run- and get far, far away from there- then they would likely be the next to die in such a way.

They ran off after that. And she was thankful that they had listened since time was short and she really hadn't wanted to physically snap them out of their shocked haze by slapping them.

She took a moment to watch them disappear before then shifting her attention to what had been thrown/shot towards the building that had just fallen. Absently noting that whatever it was, it was still _alive_.

 _Is it a sea monster or something?_ She wondered idly. After all, if Soul Reaper's, Vizard's, Quincies, Hollow's and Espada's existed...then why not sea monsters too? Wouldn't that sort of round things out a bit?

Maybe even change the world just a little bit more?

She quickly made her way towards it, not quite certain what exactly she was going to do once she reached it. She supposed that it really depended on whether or not it was a... _good_ sea monster? Though she wasn't going to lie and say that the very strong urge to maim something wasn't present in her.

It was. Especially since she was spattered in someone's blood.

She could hear something akin to a metalic groaning sound that tampered off into retching before she reached it. And to be honest, despite the fact that she could see a large steel form- or at least the top half of one anyways- she _still_ had her mind firmly set on referring to the thingy as a sea monster as she pushed a few things out of the way so that she could get a closer look at it.

It was _definitely_ a person made of steel, she noted as she moved just a tad bit closer. A very large, very damaged, metal person. Whom was missing the bottom half of their body...

She winced a little bit in sympathy, knowing that despite being a large metal person, that kind of injury had to _hurt_ like a son of a bitch and then some. However it wasn't until it spoke to her that she realized that it- no _he_ \- wasn't a bad person.

Although she might have normally been able to tell that much faster, but with her senses going haywire on her because of all the danger and death. Then it was perfectly understandable that she was _somewhat_ clueless here.

"Run." He said around a high pitched, and painful sounding screeching sound, yet despite how weak his voice sounded she heard him perfectly. "You need to run."

Resolving herself to do what she could to help him- somehow, she gritted her teeth and then crossed the remaining distance between them, summoning her Santen Kisshun again so that she could try to heal him as he kept repeating, 'run' over and over again.

"Trying to chase me away, baby boy?" Was all that she could think to say once she reached him, and managed to finally put a hand on him. She saw the faint glow of what she supposed were his eyes, brighten a little bit in bewilderment as he focused on her face.

She patted his- whatever it was- and let her eyes travel along his body a bit in an effort to figure out just how she was going to heal him when his bottom half was MIA. But knew that with enough energy fed to them, then they should be able to reconstruct the guy's bottom half out of microscopic particles.

It was just...going to be very draining on her. And she still had no idea if she was going to have to fight or not. So she had to proceed with at least some caution here.

"Don't you worry any, I'm going to take care of you. You'll be fixed up in no time." She said in a soothing tone before calling the little fairies to begin their work. They created a small barrier around the two of them as she let her spirit energy flood out of her so that they could work quickly.

After all, there was no point in doing this if they were simply going to be sitting ducks.

"Talk to me, tin man. What's your name?"

"J-Jazz." He said, his voice giving way for a second almost as if she were hearing static before it cleared up again.

"That's a nice name. Can you tell me who or what did this to you?"

"Megatron." He said, his voice sounding slightly stronger now.

She smiled at him as she felt one of the dings in his frame vanish underneath her palm. He must have realized that something was up because he was suddenly looking very alert and somewhat tense.

"What's happening?" He blurted out after a second or so as he pinned her with shocked looking eyes.

"What does it feel like to you?"

"I-I don't really know." He said sounding startled before then tacking on. "I don't hurt anymore." She wasn't sure if it was possible for giant robots to frown, but if it was- then her giant new buddy was definitely frowning.

She let her eyes flicker down his body and felt a great deal of satisfaction in knowing that the Santen Kisshun were almost done putting him back together again when she felt a wave of dizziness hit her. She staggered in place for a second, and then wound up having to lean on her robot buddy's frame a little bit.

She was vaguely aware of him asking her if she was okay. But all she could do was tell him to wait until the barrier shattered before moving any.

He still moved. Impatient thing that he was, he seemed overly squirmy as he carefully pushed himself up a little bit so that he was resting his body on one of his elbow joints while moving his free hand to carefully catch her in his palm when her legs started to buckle.

"Careful fem," He said as he curled his fingers around her so that she had a place to sit instead of simply allowing her to hit the ground amongst the jagged steel and pieces of broken and melted glass. "Big Bot would have my aft in a sling if you got hurt."

He didn't say _why_ that was exactly, but she managed to fill in the blanks of what went unsaid easily enough. While they both waited for him to finish being reconstructed a bit.

A few moments later the Santen Kisshun finished their work and quickly returned to their place, embedded in her chest. Which caused her to cough and struggle for breath a little bit as her chest _ached_ almost painfully from the stress of using them so much in one day.

She absently rubbed the area where Orihime's former hair clips had been merged with her body several years ago during the last war in a last ditch effort to save her life, and eyed her robot buddy.

Silently hoping that he wouldn't turn on her and attempt to squish her like a bug now that he was whole again.

"Y-You saved me." He sounded shocked despite knowing this fact before hand as he shifted a bit more so that he could sit up. "You _reattached_ my legs?!" His voice was sounding just a tad bit incredulous now.

Which was ever so slightly offensive to her.

After all, she may not be the same as Orihime, but she knew enough about anatomy to be able to help someone. Her limits were only as far as her imagination could stretch. And after nearly five years of fighting, death, chaos and such- her imagination _could_ stretch pretty damned far.

Especially after all of the things that she'd seen.

He went silent for a moment or two, and fixed his absolute attention on her after taking a moment to check his new legs and make sure that they worked right. Once he was certain that they would work and he'd be able to use them, she snatched her up off of the ground and opened a panel in his chest and more or less stuffed her into it.

Merely telling her to hang out there for a little bit and catch her breath before he got up off of the ground and began to run back to where his friends were.


	2. Chapter 2

_Megatron was dead._

Optimus stared at the body of his fallen enemy and had to resist the urge to drop to his knees in relief as he stood there waiting, almost with bated breath. Praying that he wasn't wrong about his enemy being offline.

He waited one click. Then two. And for six or seven more before finally letting out a long, weary sounding breath that almost had him sagging in place.

His processors were still trying to convince him of the fact that Megatron had _finally_ been defeated. And wouldn't rise ever again.

Finally after so many, many, _many_ years. After waging so many near endless battles across the galaxies. And after losing so very many friends and comrades- it was over.

With Megatron dead, the Decepticon's should fall easily within the Autobot's grasp. After all, they were loyal to no one, cared for nothing...and protected only themselves. Surely it wouldn't be too difficult to round them up and take care of them before more sentient beings died.

Finally looking away from the damage that his battled with Megatron had done to the human city...he felt an overwhelming sense of sadness. Humans had died here today.

Whether it had been hundreds or even thousands? He didn't really know.

But he could honestly say that their demise, even in the wake of his victory- would become a heavy price for the Autobot's to pay reparations for. Especially if they were going to speak with the human's government about being able to _stay_ on Earth since their home planet was no more.

His spark ached for the small, fragile organic beings. Truly it did.

And he would find a way to make things right. _Eventually_.

But for now, he had other concerns. Like finding what was left of his fallen men and collecting their bodies so that the humans couldn't touch them.

He wasn't such a fool that he would trust the humans not to try and strip his fallen comrades of their weapons and frames in an effort to _steal_ their technological advancements. After all, such things had happened before with other races and he'd learn not to be so naive and trusting of others from those incidents.

Especially when those incidents had cost him more than he cared to admit.

Turning on his coms, he took a moment to say. "Megatron has been defeated. Every bot still functioning, sound off." Almost automatically he could hear various bots responding to his command.

"Ratchet."

"Bumblebee."

"Ironhide."

He started to turn his coms off when he suddenly heard, _"Jazz."_ And jerked his head up and began to look for his friend. And paused, his optics going wide when he saw him in the slight distance, running towards him.

Wait? Running?

But hadn't Megatron torn his friend in half?

"Jazz? You're whole?! What happened?" Optimus practically shouted into his com. His tone colored with disbelief and more than a fair bit of shock.

"I met a fem who managed to put me back together!" Jazz said excitedly. "You'll meet her once I get here. She's a little bit busy screaming all kinds of things at me right now."

Optimus didn't know what to say to that. So he didn't say anything at all as he waited for his friend to finally reach him.

* * *

She wasn't sure what _perturbed_ her the most at the moment.

The fact that her new 'buddy' had snatched her up off of the streets and tossed her into the panel in his chest. The fact that the inside of the space she was in, looked weirdly akin to what she could imagine the inside of a Gundam looked like. Or maybe it was the fact that she didn't know what the _fuck_ was going on outside.

From the way that her new buddy was moving, he wasn't being attacked. At least not as far as she could tell. But that didn't exactly negate the possibility of being chased and attacked once he was caught.

And if that happened, she'd have no choice but to find a way to get out of his little panel- so that she can keep them _both_ from being killed.

And man, oh man was she pissed.

Not exactly the kind of gal to curb her language just because she might offend someone's delicate sensibility's. She was busy making her new buddy _understand_ just how goddamned irked she was with him at the moment.

She was fairly loud about it too. Making sure to punctuate specific words with hard kicks to the inner walls of her little 'cell'. Which occasionally earned her little yelps and the occasional pat to his chest panel with the assurances that he'd let her out soon. No _really_ , he would!

He was getting tired of her kicking him!

Apparently she was sort of denting his insides. Which she was. So she stopped kicking him out of guilt. But she hadn't stopped yelling all kinds of obscenities just yet.

Mostly because his responses to some of them were kind of amusing for a giant tin man. I mean, who knew that he could do a full body flinch while she was talking about crushing male reproductive organs? She hadn't. So it was naturally interesting to her that he managed to pull one off _without_ face planting.

But he'd somehow managed it and just kept running.

And she was understandably impressed. Especially since if someone had said the same thing to her then she _would_ have face planted.

Her giant buddy finally stopped running and was now standing still. She knew this because the abrupt lurch that nearly caused her to fall face first into one of his insides. She even squawked and flailed when she started to fall in an effort not too when the tin man suddenly opened up his panel and she spilled out into his palm.

And started shouting at him all over again.

* * *

Optimus stared at the shrieking human fem with wide, and slightly startled optics as she shouted all kinds of oaths at Jazz. His friend hadn't been able to tell him much about the fem before he'd finally reached him. Merely specific calculations.

Basic knowledge.

Age- between seventeen and twenty one years old. Height, Six foot two inches. Which was tall for a human fem, but not uncommon among the population of organics. Her weight was estimated to be around one hundred and thirty pounds.

Which wasn't as frighteningly slender as Mikeala nor Sam. Yet despite the extra weigh she carried, he could tell from her build that she wasn't out of shape for a fem. Quite the contrary, her build was that of a dancer. Lithe, graceful, yet with generous curves in the right places for an organic.

He already made a mental note to keep Sam _away_ from her since the teen's hormones already ran rampant on him, and he tended to get distracted easily because of them.

He also made a mental note to try not to leave the unknown fem and Mikeala from being left alone for too long. He'd seen enough of the Earth's internet 'videos' to see that human fem's were territorial and would even fight for mating rights in some, _extreme_ cases.

And frankly, Sam had some growing up to do before he could handle a woman like this fem. He could already tell that she was what was commonly referred to as- a league of her own.

Sam wouldn't be able to handle her without getting hurt anyways. So she'd probably eat him alive.

What he hadn't expected though, was once she finally finished shouting at Jazz and looked his way- he felt his breath hitch a bit.

It wasn't just because she was exotically beautiful for an organic that made his breath hitch. Really, he'd seen more beautiful fem's than she during his many eons of life. But he hadn't expected her eyes to burn like small blue _stars_.

He could almost see the universe in those small burning stars.

It was breathtaking. Dizzying. And sent many unidentifiable emotions tumbling through his mind as he leaned down just a bit so that he could see her a little closer.

She didn't shrink away from him like he expected she would. Even Sam and Mikeala had at first due to his overwhelming height. Instead she merely gave him a slight tilt of her head and stared him down in a defiant manner as she crossed her arms over her ample chest and asked, "Who're you?"

If not for the fact that he was such a calm and even tempered mech, he might have been upset by her actions. But at the moment, he just found them _adorable_.

Much like those tiny, cute kitten videos that he'd found on YouTube and watched before they had crashed on Earth.

After all, despite the fact that Jazz said that she had saved him...he very much doubted that she possessed the strength to actually _harm_ him if he did anything threatening. So she could hiss and bare her tiny claws all she liked. It didn't scare him any.

"My name is Optimus Prime, fem." He said in a low tone. Trying not to scare her by letting his voice boom like it usually did as he asked. "What is your name?"

She seemed to be thinking over something for a second before slowly saying, "Mercy... My name is Mercy."

"Mercy?" Both mechs said in unison.

The name making rounds inside of their processors as Optimus slowly said, "That's a very fitting name for someone who saves people." He let his optics flicker over her for a moment, pausing ever so slightly at the sight of blood on her shirt and some on her face.

"Are you injured Mercy?" He asked after a moment or so. She had a sad look akin to the one that he'd worn minutes prior. And he felt a strange heavy weight settle in the pit of his frame as he looked away for a moment.

He heard heavy steps making their way towards them and looked up just in time to see Ironhide and Ratchet meander up.

"Optimus, sir. The organics are getting antsy." Ratchet said as he took a moment to look over Jazz since he'd been close enough to him to see him be torn in two by Megatron.

"Right, we've wasted enough time standing around." Optimus said, understanding how many of the humans must feel at the moment. Turning his com's back on he quickly ordered Bumblebee to grab Sam and Mikeala and then turned to the others. "We need to leave. Mercy. It looks like you'll be joining us for the time being."

"Huh?" Was all the fem managed to get out in protest before he carefully took her from Jazz's hand and let his friends all transform before then setting her down on the ground and doing the same. After that, he had her climb into his cab and they all drove off so that they could avoid any hostility likely to come from the human authorities.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay first of all. I'm not really attacking anyone for their religious beliefs. I based part of Ichigo/Mercy's previous experiences on a few of my own. 
> 
> They all sucked, and because of them I've been in and out of therapy for nearly all of my life.
> 
> so there's that.

If anyone would have told him that he and his men would find the equivalent of a 'magical girl'. Optimus likely would have thought someone mad, and laughed at them. Or punched them, depending on who he was talking to about said person.

And yet...here he was after crash landing on Earth, and defeating Megatron- staring down the very fem mentioned before.

It had been a week since the battle. And much had happened for the Autobots during that time.

For starters, after leaving the city the day of the battle, he and the others dropped Sam and Mikeala off at their homes and then decided to track down an old ship of theirs to use as a base. The fact that he decided to drag Mercy along with them, had nothing to do with anything but the fact that he was genuinely curious about the fem right then.

After all, Jazz had been regaling them with how she had saved him over the coms for the better part of three, long hours. And despite the colorful embellishments that his friend made to the story every time he told it- one fact remained. She had done something that should have been _impossible_ for a human.

She had saved him. _Healed_ him and made him whole once again.

Of course this fact was driven home for him whenever one of the others, Ratchet he supposed, decided to challenge Jazz's story. And _all_ of them wound up being sent the memory of the event itself straight from the mechs mind.

And to say that Optimus was now a very firm believer that Mercy had done the _impossible_ , would be an understatement. However it was knowing that she was different from other humans. Possessing abilities beyond simply organic understanding that made him to decide to keep the young woman with them.

_Indefinitely._

Especially after realizing that her abilities could be used for more than just healing. It had offensive and defensive uses too! All of which could make the fem an asset to them and their cause.

Besides, he was worried about what might happen if the Decepticon's somehow found out about her and her abilities. Alone, he and his men could handle them easily. But if Mercy were left to her own vices, and they found her...

They could hurt her. Torture her.

Break her in ways that made his large frame shudder in utter revulsion. But what was more than that- was before they killed her, they could make her resurrect Megatron and any other Decepticon's that had recently died.

So keeping her with them, and keeping her safe was now just _one_ of his utmost priorities. However when he tried to speak to her about it, the fem wasn't as agreeable to his idea to keep her as he had hoped that she would be.

Now don't get him wrong, he _did_ understand her reasons. Sort of. Just like she seemed to understand his own reasons for wanting her to stay with them. But she wasn't willing to give up the life that she currently had. Not for the sake of her immediate wellbeing. And certainly _not_ even in exchange for her very life.

Now most people would have simply let the matter drop after that and respected the other person's wishes. But Optimus wasn't most people. He wasn't even human and as such he felt he had to push just a little bit more.

Sort of like a dog with a bone.

Whatever the hell that even meant.

He had decided then and there that if the fem was going to be stubborn about the subject- then he'd just have to convince her that staying with them were she could be protected was simply in her best interests. And after what he'd seen of Jazz's memory of her healing him, he wasn't likely to stop or give up on his plans anytime soon.

Not until she saw reason at least.

After all, her safety was _imperative_ to them now. Much like Sam and Mikeala's were. It was as much a life debt thing as it was an honor thing to the mechs. She had helped and even saved one of their own.

That made protecting/caring for her for the rest of her life _their_ responsibility.

So after some rather heated arguing and absolutely _no_ sign whatsoever of her giving in, he had finally let her go home. Mostly out of aggravation- what did you want from him? He'd been trapped on a space ship for _who-knew-how-many_ thousands of years. And with Megatron's defeat, he was due some quiet time. Besides, the fem kept calling him Tin Man. _Tin. Man!_ It was irritating to him to say the least.

After all, he'd never had anyone speak to him so disrespectfully before in eons! So really, he wasn't sure how he was supposed to react to her mouthing off to him. It wasn't as if he could intimidate her. That would be wrong and he really didn't like the idea of resorting to intimidation and fear tactic with such a small fem anyways.

He may be a warrior, but he was far better than that.

However he wasn't such a fool that he'd send her home without covertly assigned everyone different times to watch her and collect info on her.

And he had been only moderately surprised to know that Mercy was a _very_ interesting person with some very interesting hobbies and habits.

She did _all_ kinds of things when no one _-_ human's mostly- weren't watching her too closely. Not all of which were things that mere organics- or human's, rather- should be able to _do_ at all.

For starters, she had obviously known that he wasn't just going to leave her 'unsupervised' for any length of time while she was away from them. And had decided to mess with them a little bit once she made Ironhide's vehicle form parked across the street from her home.

They had lost her for four days.

_Four. Gut wrenchingly. Terrifying. Unaccountable. Days_. Of not knowing if she was okay, alive, captured by Decepticon's or dead in a ditch somewhere!

They had been as baffled and freaked the fuck out as any mechs in their situation _could_ be. And as such, they had all immediately scrambled to look for her.

All because she had decided to wear disguises to hide herself in plain sight whenever she went out. To be honest, it wasn't really her fault that they had lost her to begin with. Since they were alien and non organic lifeforms- they weren't all that informed about the varying ways that human's hid themselves in plain sight when they felt the need to do so.

And they were attempting to rectify that just in case she pulled a disappearing act on them again.

Still...he and the others were actually really very impressed. Almost just as much as they were frustrated, by her ability to disappear at a moment's notice without any warning at all whatsoever.

It was a tactic that someone who didn't want to be found tended to employ.

And it was fucking _brilliant_.

She was quite good at blending in with her surroundings like a chameleon. And to be honest, they would have lost her for a lot longer if it wasn't for getting Sam to help them track her down.

But disappearing in plain sight aside, she also did other things that were interesting to them.

They had managed to catch her using her abilities a little bit more. They had anticipated her wanting to seem as normal and ordinary as possible with abilities like hers. However whenever they did catch her using them, it was as far away from the city and other people as humanly possible for her.

Which was fascinating to say the least. Especially since it gave them a chance to really analyze how her abilities worked.

The first time they had managed to catch her using her abilities, it had been at an abandoned/condemned building on the outskirts of the city.

The area was fairly secluded and partially hidden away due to surrounding buildings and tall vegetation and fences. So it was only natural that it would make an ideal practice site for her to let loose a bit.

She had spent hours going over various things.

She had worked on healing small, injured, ill, and dying animals that she had found along her way there. Birds, cats, dogs, rabbits and such. As well as practicing her defensive abilities as well. She blew some things us, created barriers of varying hardness, shot things full of holes from a distance...

And once that had been done, she had begun to go through martial arts kata's.

Or at least that was what it had looked like to them. If not for Sam pointing out that she was _obviously_ trained in martial arts and perhaps some various other things hand to hand combat related as well...Optimus might have blown a gasket worrying about her. _Again_.

Another thing that they had learned about her, was that she knew the human anatomy well. Almost just as well as a practicing human physician would.

She'd been attacked twice by low life thugs seeking to steal from her. And dropped them both- weapons and all, within the span of time it took to blink. Yet she had done so without causing them irreparable harm. She also seemed to know enough about medical procedures to perfectly execute some of them _without_ the use of her abilities as well.

As was demonstrated when she was present at the corner of a street during an car accident. One of them had managed to catch her preforming emergency medical aid on another human after the accident. From what they had seen, it looked as if the human had somehow had one of their lungs damaged or collapse on them.

And she had quickly and efficiently provided them relief so that they could breathe again. After that she had stayed with them and monitored their vitals while waiting for help to arrive.

Of course it was that very same evening that Optimus had gone to fetch her and see if she had finally begun to see reason. She hadn't. So he had done the most _awful_ thing that he could think of to get her to come with him.

He'd used one of his weapons and blasted a hole in her living room wall. Proclaimed it 'definitely not safe' for her to stay there. And then grabbed her and tossed her into his chest panel while he was transforming back into his vehicle form and drove off with her.

She screamed at him over the course of the next half hour before quickly switching tactics and telling him repeatedly to pull over and let her out. All of which he singularly ignored until something horrible happened that had his brakes abruptly going on so that he could skid to a stop.

His processor had just been thrown for a loop and he was trying very, _very_ desperately to grapple with words. Meanwhile she merely sighed and hung her head a little bit in defeat when he suddenly ejected her from his cab and transformed back into his bot form and loomed over her like a storm cloud.

"Did you just-" He started to ask, uncertain with how he was supposed to react to this new development. Especially since it was the absolute first time ever in eons that someone had actually dared to _piss_ on him.

Not even his men- no! Not even bad behaving _sparklings_ had ever dared do do such to him! To say that he was as angry as he was embarrassed by this...incident, would be a gross understatement.

He was literally utterly _flabbergasted_ by the sheer audacity of the fem.

"I did," She confirmed, looking almost as displeased as he was disgusted at the moment as she carefully tacked on. "But in my defense, I did tell you to stop and let me out."

"Yes, but I thought that was because you wanted out to escape." He said in a bewildered tone.

She merely thinned her lips at him and hummed before then pointing out. "And that is exactly why you got peed on. The next time a girl tells you to stop and let them out- listen to them. It could have been much worse than a simple onesie."

He didn't say it aloud by he was already _very_ aware of what to do next time. And though he was loathe to admit it, he had sort of brought this incident on himself by not listening.

Still...it didn't mean that he had to like it any.

Human urine was weirdly warm. And it even had a funny smell to it!

_Ugh_... If they had been anywhere near a lake at that moment, he would have most assuredly dived into it in an effort to clean his cab out. He didn't even care if he came back with little organic hitchhikers.

This just sucked!

Heaving a sigh, he felt the anger drain right out of him since he knew that she was right. "Very well, next time I'll listen."

"Good for you."

"Can we leave now? I want to get my cab cleaned out." He didn't think that he was whining, though he certainly must have sounded like it at the moment.

Still Mercy waved at him to indicate that he could transform back to his truck form. And then upon climbing back inside of his cab- which was wet and squishy and very _uncomfortable_ to them both, she made a point of telling him to go by the next local shop that he was passing.

She needed new, clean- and most importantly _dry_ clothing. And he needed something to clean his cab with.

Needless to say, he listened to her that time.

That had been two days ago.

Mercy had been staying with them since then because Optimus had blasted a hole in her living room and it would take some time to get it repaired.

At present she was trying to fend off Sam.

The boy had come to visit them all, and had caught the mechs talking about some of her non human-esque abilities and had for some ungodly reason taken it upon himself to help them sort things out by watching some of the video memories that they had each collected of her before he had finally exclaimed in surprise, "Holy shit, she's a magical girl!"

Then had run out of the room, with Optimus and the others following close behind out of concern and curiosity, to find her.

And now that he'd found her he was _trying_ to attach himself to her while begging her to help him with stuff- like school and romance- with her magical abilities.

Mercy, of course didn't seem to care much for what he was asking her to help him with. And was quick to shut that shit down when she grabbed him by the front of his shirt and lifted him up off of the ground so that his feet weren't touching it anymore and then _shook_ him.

It wasn't a violent shake. At least it didn't seem so to the mechs standing several feet away watching the whole exchange between the two organics in morbid fascination before she dropped him. Allowing him to fall back to the floor where he landed on his butt as she spat in an irritated tone, "What the hell is your problem, kid?"

"Ow, I should be asking you that!" Sam snapped back. "What kind of magical girl drops people like that?"

She snapped her fingers in front of his face to get his attention when he looked away from her to see if he was getting any bruising from his fall, and automatically turned his head back around so that she could growl at him. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"You. You're a _magical girl_. You can do impossible things! Just like Sailor Moon or something."

She scoffed at him and crossed her arms over her chest before saying, "There's no such thing as a magical girl, you dim wit. They don't exist. You've been reading too much manga or something."

"Well, if you aren't a magical girl...then you must be a witch or something. Right?" Sam asked, looking thoroughly pleased with himself and his reasoning skills.

Mercy gave him the _darkest_ most utterly murderous look that Optimus had ever seen a fem give anyone before. It was honestly so scary- even to him- that he took a small shuffle back away from her and pushed Bumblebee, Jazz and Ratchet behind him as he did so.

"Do you know the history of witches brat?" She suddenly shouted at the boy. "Do you even realize just how many people- innocent one's at that- have been _murdered_ in cold blood because words like that are tossed around so carelessly?"

Sam visibly bristled. "This isn't the Salem Witch Trials!"

"Well thank god for that," Mercy said in a sarcastic tone. "After all, it's not like religious fanatic's still exist today. God forbid that someone young should actually learn from the worlds grim and dark history and _not_ say such things so carelessly."

Sam looked near close to tears now. But wasn't backing down any despite the disdain and venom Mercy was directing towards him.

"Have you even met religious fanatics?"

Optimus wasn't sure if the question was intended to stop the fem from snarking at him any further or to do something else entirely. Either way, the boy obviously didn't expect her to shout.

"Hell yes, I've _met_ some! Do you understand how crazy they are? People who think that they're doing 'gods' work are totally nuts! They're so deluded by the imaginary world that they want to create for themselves that you can't reason with them. Logic simply isn't a part of their vocabulary. And all of their so called holy missions- are nothing more than their own agenda's twisting the actual bible to suite their purposes."

"But most of all, there's _no_ stopping them once they believe that you're a heretic! If a person so much as looks different, speaks with an accent, has a dark favorite color or listens to 'unholy' music- their _all_ marked for death. The elderly, innocent babies, the ill, deformed, and dying aren't exempt. If they think that one of them is in the way of their perfect fucking world- they die!"

Sam blinked and his mouth worked just like a fish's mouth would. Optimus could certainly empathize with the boy. He hadn't expected Mercy to snap at him like this either.

But it certainly gave them all some food for thought as Bumblebee skittered around him and went to collect his young charge and get him away from the fem.


	4. Chapter 4

Contrary to how that particular encounter had gone between Mercy and Sam- the fem did apologize to the boy for jumping on him. She knew that he was simply trying to put a name to... _whatever_ she was. To better help the mechs figure out how they should classify her. Which would also help them figure out a majority of her needs so that they could take care of them.

After all, aliens had alien needs. And human's had human ones.

This was just a simple statement of fact.

However if the Autobots weren't really sure _if_ she were human or not- then they didn't know what to anticipate. Behaviors, habits, needs, wants, desires- _all_ beings had very specific ones that drove them. All of the mechs knew that. However trying to figure out Mercy and her needs was...complicated.

She didn't really answer any questions that anyone asked her. Not unless she felt like it anyways. And often times when she did answer someone's questions. Her responses were short and straight to the point.

She did like speaking with Jazz and Bee though. That was something that even Optimus certainly noticed about the fem almost right away. Aside from Jazz following her around calling her his 'princess' and his 'darling spark' in a infatuated manner, that is.

But then that wasn't really anything unusual since the mech had always been a little bit of a skirt chaser. So really Optimus wasn't terribly surprised by his friend's behavior towards the fem.

However things got a little bit...awkward again a little bit later on when Sam decided to forgive her after she apologized to him- and asked her if she needed anything from town. And then vocally rattled off a list of _possible_ things that she may need while she stayed at their base.

Apparently human fem's couldn't survive without very specific things.

Food. Water. Clean clothing. Hygiene items. Ice Cream? Blankets. Pillows. _Medicines_.

Optimus and Ironhide both had to hold Ratchet back at that one since the mech was their only doctor and he didn't want any foreign or questionable substances on the base whatsoever. Besides, Ratchet needed to learn how to treat the fem anyways.

So a little bit of trial and error was necessary for the current learning curb. Right?

In any case, Mercy made sure to hand Sam a list of things that she obviously needed if she were going to stay there, along with a credit card to pay for everything. She also told him to keep the receipts for her- and to take Mikeala along since she would likely be of help to him since she doubted that he'd actually recall everything.

After that, Sam and Bumblebee left for the day. But not before the boy promised to bring her the necessities that she didn't already have at hand.

Once they were gone, things got quiet again.

Mercy wandered off to hang out in the large room that Optimus had personally assigned her. Which was probably the safest and most comfortable place in the whole base since the mech had collected/built everything in it himself with her specifically in mind.

It had everything that he could have thought of. A kitchen, a living room, a laundry room with a washer and dryer for her clothing. And a nice bedroom with a large ornate bed that he had hand carved from a large red oak tree.

She had a bathroom too. Just not one with a functioning bath or shower. And since that was the case, if she wanted to bathe, then she would have to ask someone where the showers were.

Which Optimus was pretty much waiting on her to do at any moment now since she hadn't bathed since the other day. And with the somewhat oppressive warmth of the base, he would imagine that the fem would be fairly dying for a bath by now.

Because of her delicate sensibilities and all that.

Anyways, he decided that while he was waiting on her to come and ask him about the showers- to get some work done. He hacked some human satellites, checked for any signs of Decepticon activity and after finding none. He decided to search the internet some more about various subjects.

Human history, literature- he came across something called the Discovery Channel and managed to get thoroughly engrossed by the many various video's and documentaries about the animal kingdom.

They had hundreds if not thousands of videos on all manner of things. Humans, animals, insects, amphibians... His favorite so far was the lion documentary. He was fascinated by the animal's hierarchy infrastructure. He hadn't realized that the females hunted the food for them males. But then, he couldn't really understand why such mighty creatures didn't hunt for their mates instead.

He couldn't imagine sleeping in while his spark mate was running around doing god-knew-what. It would simply drive him crazy. Besides, he was a warrior for a reason.

Being self sufficient was simply a major part of his central programing.

Finishing up the lion documentary, he switched off the screen that he'd been using and decided to check the time since it would help him to determine whether or not he should stay put or just go hunt the fem down and ask her if she wanted to participate in a bathing ritual.

He was only moderately startled to find that he'd been watching the documentary for three in a half hours. Which meant that he'd been in the same place for nearly five hours straight.

It was definitely time to go and hunt the fem down.

* * *

Ichigo was having a difficult time adjusting to her new surroundings. Not because she was uncomfortable or anything- though if she had been, she very much doubted that anyone would have been able to blame her overly much.

After all, being the only human- sort of- around a group of giant _alien_ men made out of steel...was a difficult thing to get used too. And it wasn't just because she worried about being accidentally stepped on either.

The EM fields that they threw off whenever they were around her were so strong that it _interfered_ with things like her extra senses.

Do you know how hard it was to specifically pin point whether or not there was a Hollow running amok when you were surrounded by beings that could literally give her random nose bleeds, and fits of epileptic seizures?

Well she could honestly tell you that it was really fucking _hard_.

So far she had had three nose bleeds, two seizures, and the rest of her senses were practically static. Needless to say, she had been a _bit_ on edge for the past couple of days.

Add to the stress of having all of _that_ happen- as well as her living room being blasted into next week by an temper tantrum throwing tin man. And then having to go through specific channels to repair it somehow- all while staying with said aliens...so naturally her stress levels were _insanely_ high.

She was honestly expecting a heart attack or stroke to happen any moment now. Not only that, but she hadn't even eaten or slept in the past _two_ days straight!

She was starving, felt like shit, and her head was killing her with the migraine that she had developed a little while ago.

At the moment, she was in her room trying to stave off the sudden bout of nausea that she was feeling while her skull felt like it was trying to split apart on her.

So when the boss tin man suddenly appeared in her doorway, she was sorely temped to throw something at his head. But somehow, miraculously managed to refrain from doing so. If only out of curiosity to see what he wanted.

However he took one look at her lying there on the floor of her room and got an alarmed look on his mechanical face as he asked. "Are you alright?" He stepped into the room and moved to kneel down so that he was next to her and carefully gathered her body in his palm.

The sudden movement caused her stomach to lurch dangerously as she squeezed her eyes shut to avoid the room spinning on her and had to bite back a whimper as she rasped out.

"I think I'm a little bit sick."

He frowned at her and blinked his eyes and then gently asked, "Do you need me to take you to Ratchet?"

And just like that, the very prospect of going to see the alien for any medical needs whatsoever seemed to fix everything just like magic. Well, sort of anyways.

"No. I'm fine," He looked as if he didn't totally believe her. _Clever bot_. So she tried to distract him by asking. "What did you need anyways?"

He tilted his head a little bit and regarded her in an suspicious manner for a moment before slowly saying, "You have not participated in a bathing ritual since arriving here. I thought that perhaps you might want to do so."

She frowned at him, idly wondering if that was the tin man's way of telling her that she smelled bad as he went on to add, "We have procured clean towels and clothing for you."

There was absolutely no way that he could have missed the weird way that she automatically perked up in his palm as she pushed herself upright and asked, "That's nice. Did you manage to get any soap too?"

"We did," He confirmed with a slight nod of his head as he tacked on, "You will have your pick between the lily, honeysuckle, orange blossom, and peony scented soaps."

She thinned her lips for a second to keep from asking how he or any of his friends had managed to miraculously get their hands on soap, and clean towels and clothing. But had a sneaky suspicion on how it had happened, and wasn't really sure that she wanted her suspicions confirmed.

Besides, a bath sounded...strangely nice right about now. And maybe one would help her relax enough for her migraine to stop bothering her.

"Sure, lets go." She said after a moment or so of careful thought.

The big guy didn't need to twist her arm any. She was perfectly willing to go take a bath if it meant that she could possibly relax a little bit.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something got lost in translation.

It didn't occur to her until after they had reached the area where she could take bath and was already ditching her shirt, shoes, and pants- that the boss tin man was still present- that maybe, just maybe she'd made a grievous error in judgement.

This, of course, was driven home by the fact that the tin man was _still_ present despite the fact that she had thought that he had left her alone mere moments ago. In fact, when she realized that he was still there when she had turned her head and had found that he was standing eerily still just a few steps away from her.

His eerie neon blue eyes locked on her small form as something unnamable flickered across his expression for a moment.

She automatically flushed with embarrassment at being caught stripping in front of him. Even if it was purely by accident. Normally she wasn't the type of girl to strip in front of anyone male no matter what.

For fuck's sake, she _loathed_ stripping for doctors now!

Why the hell would she willingly strip in front of an alien guy?!

And yet, despite her embarrassment she took a moment to steel her nerves and continue stripping anyways. After all, just because he was an alien man didn't mean that he had any interest in her. And if he did- it was probably purely in a clinical capacity.

Because they were both very _different_ species. Right?

Her heart pounded and she reached for one of the towels that he'd pointed out to her. Hoping that maybe she could get away with using one as a temporary bathing cover of sorts when she felt something cold and metal very lightly tracing the scar on her left shoulder.

It was the scar that she had earned when she had tried to fight Renji and Byakuya the first time they'd met. The very same scar that she had gotten while attempting to _save_ Rukia's life.

It was also one of the most vivid and painful looking scars that she had on her body aside from the few chest wounds and of course the area where the Santen Kisshun had merged with her.

She didn't have to turn her head to see where he was now. Aside from his finger touching her old wound, she could feel heat. From his breath? So she knew that he was much closer than he had been before.

"What happened here?" He asked curiously as he lightly traced the length of the scar. She took a moment to think of a decent way to answer his question before simply settling on a simple and perhaps a little bit cryptic explanation.

"I nearly got killed as a kid."

"Were you in an accident?"

She opted not to reply at all to that question since it wasn't any of his business. And of course, her silence told him more than anything else that she could have told him herself. She could feel his EM field spike dangerously with the shift in his mood.

Making it easy for her to determine the impact of him _knowing_ that she wasn't in an accident and almost died- did to him. And apparently it displeased him greatly.

He didn't ask her anything else for the moment. But he thankfully did back off a bit. Which was a relief really. Especially since she was starting to get really dizzy. However her relief was short lived when he did something that she hadn't expected him to do.

In fact, she was so totally thrown for a loop because of what he did next that she couldn't even seem to shake herself out of her funk long enough to scream or anything.

He changed forms.

She had come to expect him and the others to take their vehicle forms whenever they decided to change. So she hadn't realized that he could change into a much smaller, and more _human_ form at all. Which was probably kind of stupid of her considering the ease that they used their transformation ability to blend in.

So when she had finally turned around to go and walk over to the shower, she was really surprised to suddenly find herself face to face with a human, shockingly handsome, and very _naked_ looking man.

She made a weird strained sound in the back of her throat as she felt hands- human and yet they were still impossibly large- reach out and take hold of her slender shoulders for a moment before he bent down a little bit and slipped his arms around her.

Managing to pick her up bridal style with a disturbing amount of ease and then carried her over to the shower and sat down and then settled her in his lap and turned on the water.

She was barely a heartbeat away from doing something when it occurred to her that if she tried to squirm or something, then his lower body- which had looked just as human as the rest of him now- might develop a big problem. So she stayed still.

Very, very still.

Of course that didn't really last for long. Especially once the water hit her and jolted her out of her thoughts enough to actually attempt to throw herself off of his lap.

Which didn't work. _At. All_. Given the fact that he had an arm firmly wrapped around her slender waist and was refusing to let her go.

His eerie blue eyes flickered to her face for a moment while she made a valiant attempt to grab onto something and drag herself to freedom. Which again, didn't work at all. If anything it only caused a momentary look of bemusement to cross his face before he quickly pulled her back and settled her firmly in place again.

Although this time he tried to take her towel from her. She slapped his hands away from her. Because _goddamn it_ she didn't want the towel taken away from her! She needed something to keep them from having full body contact. If only for her peace of mind.

However her slapping his hands away had earned her a slightly perturbed look from him before he then simply explained. "I'm not going to hurt you. I'm just going to help you wash since you aren't feeling as well as you let on."

She opened her mouth to tell him not to bother, but didn't so much as get a word out before he had yanked her towel away from her and chucked it across the room.

She squeaked and curled in on herself in an effort to protect her modesty as best as she could. As he asked her if she had decided on what soap she wished to use while using one hand to palm the nape of her neck and gently massage the area in a soothing manner as he absently reached out and grabbed two bottles of soap.

They were shampoo. Which she supposed counted as a form of soap since it _was_ used to clean hair. And she would even admit that his hand massaging her nape while she looked at the bottles- seemed to distract her enough to finally respond to his question when he asked it again.

"Honeysuckle and orange blossom."

"Do you want me to mix them?"

"S-Sure." She muttered before looking away from him. She didn't have to watch his every move to know what he would do next. So she didn't bother.

He mixed some of the shampoo in his hands and then reached around her and started to rub it into her skin. He covered her arms, shoulders, and back before then moving on to her hair and began to work the shampoo into a nice lather. Using his blunt nails to scrub her scalp a bit to dislodge any dirt and grime from her hair without hurting her.

After which, he made sure to rinse her off as well as he could with her still attempting to protect her modesty and then finally stood up and gently deposited her in the exact spot where he'd been sitting. And then very calmly told her that she would have to wash the rest of her body herself since he didn't want to touch her inappropriately and then walked off.

She heard him transform back into his large metal form before he then left the room. Leaving her feeling a weird mixture of disappointment and furious.

And once she was sure that he was gone, she made sure to growl aloud. "I should have definitely thrown something at his fucking head."


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy new years everyone!!

Optimus knew that he'd made a blunder in attempting to help Mercy bathe.

He'd have to be incredibly foolish not to know. However once he committed to something, he tended to get tunnel vision. Which often _blinded_ him to certain things. Like a person's embarrassment or even personal preferences.

He blamed being ill informed about specific human rituals as well as old habits formed over the span of thousands and thousands of years alone with his men.

To him, bathing rituals were a form of bonding and helped to keep the moral up amongst his comrades.

Though the more he thought about it, perhaps he should have studied some human rituals before attempting this. Either way, he knew that he owed the fem an explanation as well as an apology for his blunder.

Sighing because he felt _badly_ for the obvious distress that he had likely caused the fem. He waited patiently for her to complete her bath so that he could take her back to her room and maybe try to explain himself a bit.

She stayed in the bath for nearly forty minutes longer than he had anticipated that she would, after which she had come out of the shower dressed in her new clean clothes. Well, sort of.

When he turned his head to speak to her, he instantly froze up and his mind frantically scrambled to find something- _anything_ \- aside from pointing out the obvious. After all, she had to know that she was partially dressed since she was only wearing a shirt and a tiny pair of panties.

She was a _very_ pleasing fem to his optics. Even for a human. He had this point driven home for him by the way he wound up all but gaping at her as she paused next to him and seemed to be waiting on him to say or do something.

And as much as he would like to blame being trapped on a ship with nothing but _mech's_ for thousands of years- there was really more to it than that. He could have also partially blame the critical decline in female Cybertronians too. But again, there was more to it.

At this point, he couldn't even blame _desperation_ or a leave of his senses.

Ever since the war had started, Autobots had been trying desperately to find alternative methods to their...population decline. Especially with so few fem's still online and functioning. However so far, they had found very little to help their kind repopulate.

And Mercy...though she looked human enough. Was a little bit of a puzzle to him and the rest of the Autobots. Especially since they were still trying to figure out how to classify her.

In most cases if something walked like a human, and talked like a human- it was generally a good idea to think that what they were looking at was definitely a _human_.

But in the fem's case- his logic programing tended to go _way_ out into left field. In Mercy's case, his logic programing went something like this.

If it walks like Mercy, and talks like Mercy- it's a magical girl or witch? And then he would get a great big, bold lettered _**E** **rror**_ message that tended to alarm him, and make him beat his head against his hand until he finally managed to make it go away.

At least until next time.

To be honest, he still didn't know what a magical girl or a witch was. But since he'd seen Mercy nearly tear off poor Sam's head over the mere mention of the word...he worried about what he may find once he finally got the chance to look it up. He was anticipating learning about what a magical girl was far more than learning about what a witch was anyways.

Her voice jolted him out of his thoughts with an slightly irked sounding, "What are you gaping at?" At which point he finally realized that his jaw was hanging open and he quickly decided to rectify that at once by snapping it shut and quickly looking away from her.

"Ah, sorry. That was rude of me." He mumbled awkwardly before then clearing his throat and saying, "Come, I'll walk you back to your room."

The two of them started walking and to ease some of the new tension between them, he decided to try to explain himself.

"I believe that I owe you an apology and an explanation for my actions in the bath." He started as he cast a covert glance her way to see if she was listening. She was staring at him in a disconcerting manner, but she was listening.

"You see, bathing rituals around here are...a way to promote bonding and keep moral up. I'm so used to bathing with the other Autobot's after so many years alone with _just_ them as my companions- that it didn't really occur to me that you would feel embarrassed or distressed by bathing with me. And by the time I finally figured it out...I didn't know what exactly I should do. Especially since you admitted before to not feeling well. And I didn't want to leave you alone. So for that, I'm sorry. It...wasn't what I intended."

Mercy was quiet for a heartbeat or so but finally sighed and relaxed a little bit as they walked. She didn't say anything right then, but he got the distinct impression that she didn't really need to. He could tell by the way she wasn't shouting at him- that she somewhat understood.

Of course, it helped to be informed that he was forgiven. Which she finally did by saying, "I understand. Habits are a bit difficult to break. Not only that but the ship is old and still in a state of much needed repair. So...bathing together makes sense for many different reasons. Accidents _can_ happen. And pulling your resources to use what you have just makes sense."

He blinked at her for a moment and then chuckled softly.

"You're right. About everything. Still, I thought that you would appreciate an explanation and an apology for my mistake."

"You're right. I do. And next time you get the yen to bathe with me... Could you please let me keep my towel? It wasn't so much the bath or even your presence that was distressing to me. It was being in such a vulnerable state of undress with someone that I don't _know_ well. You know?"

"Of course. I understand." He said, feeling slightly better about the whole fiasco when he suddenly asked her, "May I ask... Are you a human, Mercy?"

She turned her head to look at him oddly again, a small scowl marring her face as she slowly said. "I'm human enough."

His optics flickered to her form in surprise. After all, her words indicated that she wasn't _entirely_ human without actually coming right out and saying so. He considered the implications of this information for a moment, and then filed it away for later examination as he then asked.

"Then you are at least part human?"

"Yeah. Pretty much."

"I see," He said thoughtfully. And then asked her, "Is there anything that you will need while staying with us that you don't already have?"

Mercy looked like he'd just asked her if his new paint job made his aft look fat or something. Which made him just a tad bit suspicious of her since her reaction to his question obviously meant that she was lacking _something_ that she needed to be more comfortable and was more than a little bit reluctant to mention it to him.

"Mercy."

"Ugh..."

"Tell me." He prompted in his best 'father' tone.

"But I really don't wanna." She said as they finally reached her room.

He was sorely tempted to step between her and the door since he already knew that she was going to try and hide herself inside of her room and not come out until she thought that he'd forgotten that he had asked her anything. However before he could do anything the door to her room opened and Mikeala poked her head out with a sunny smile.

"Oh! There you are!"

Both he and Mercy blinked at the girl as she stepped out of the room and took hold of one of Mercy's arms. "I decided to go ahead and get the shopping that you asked for done. So I took your card from Sam- which is good since he made the mistake of asking his mom to help him shop online for some 'girl' stuff. And that would have only ended badly for you." She said as she began to drag the fem along behind her as she went back into the room chattering a mile a minute.

Optimus stood there in stupefied silence as he watched the girl drag Mercy around so that she could point out the various things that she'd gotten for her. All of which included everything that she'd mentioned to Sam earlier that day- and more.

She got her some more clothes, some shoes, and socks. Hygiene products- toothpaste, toothbrush, some makeup, deodorant, feminine napkins and pads. Medicines. And even a bunch of food, dishes, pots, pans, and a combination of various different drinks.

Which held a lot of fascination to Mercy if the way that she looked at it was any indication at all.

In fact the way that she was looking at the food and drinks made Optimus inwardly cringe a little bit and want to kick himself for apparently forgetting something so damned _essential_ to her survival.

Finally Mikeala stopped dragging her around and let go of her. And the second that she did, Mercy made an automatic beeline for the food and drinks. She grabbed herself something to eat and drink and then wandered back over to Mikeala and nicely asked, "Can I keep you?" Which made the girl laugh in amusement before the fem then wandered off to sit down so that she could finally eat something.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a filler chap. 
> 
> I had to re write this seven times... I'm so exhausted. 
> 
> Also- I'm having surgery in a few more days and I don't really know how long it's going to take before I'm able to get back online. I think it could be a week or so. But I'm not sure. 
> 
> I plan on sleeping for a few days straight anyways.

A little bit of a routine was developed in the coming weeks after that.

He and the other Autobot's alternated between repairing their old ship/base, checking for Decepticon activity, going on patrols, and educating themselves a bit more on humans and Erath in general.

Mercy's days consisted of being coaxed out of her room by random mechs to get her to socialize with them a bit. Which for the most part she did. Though Optimus figured that her reasons were simply because she had no one to talk too around the base and it tended to get a bit lonely and boring.

So each of them tried to set time aside for her in between everything else that they were doing.

Ratchet asked her to help him stock up the med bay. Which had been a fiasco in and of itself considering that he'd asked her to help him stock the place up for if she got hurt.

Her response- was not only a little bit questionable but amusing to the casual observer considering that she'd _hired_ a team of actual doctors and a few nurses that randomly showed up to their base and decided to take a tour. As well as stocked the place with medicines, bandages, antiseptics, ect.

And the damnedset part of it all was that not a single one of them could get _angry_ with her for hiring any doctors or nurses to work there. After all, she wasn't the only organic that hung around them.

They had to consider Sam and Mikeala's physical well being too.

And yes, she _did_ point this out to them all. Well, stressed it actually- when he and several of the others had come to investigate the reason why Ratchet was dropping very loud F-bombs all over the place.

After all, they hadn't really taken that fact into consideration at all. They had merely hoped that it would never come up. Which was foolish of them, really. Especially since they knew that the kids tended to get themselves into trouble no matter what was going on.

It seemed to simply be an organic thing.

And despite the fact that the base was now well equipped for medical emergencies... There were other things that also needed to be done. Like, how to get the humans to stay quiet about their base. And what they were going to pay them with was also something that they now needed to worry about.

Especially since Optimus wasn't sure if the human's that she'd hired would stay and work for them if they weren't getting paid. It wasn't as if the humans could stay without some sort of compensation. For god's sake, there were _dangers_ to working with them!

What were they supposed to do if the doctors or nurses got hurt? Or worse?

They should have realized that Mercy had thought of all of these things and taken care of them somehow. But they didn't until they sat down to speak with them all.

Apparently before he and the others had been concerned for nothing since before the humans had been hired- they had all signed a none disclosure agreements about keeping the Autobot's existence a secret as well as a few other things mentioned in the agreements.

Like the location of their base, names, species, and specific rules about what was allowed and what was not in regards to cell phones, pictures, Facebook, Twitter, leaking important information to the press, ect. As well as what the consequences would be for any slip ups.

Optimus upon learning this had shot the fem a curious look, but had gone right back to speaking with the other humans and discovered that Mercy had all of their asses covered. Literally.

Upon being hired to work with the Autobot's everyone had received a specific financial payment- which Optimus had asked Mercy about point blank. After all, they may be ancient aliens but none of them had that kind of scratch lying around anywhere. They simply had had no need for any kind of money up until now.

Which is when they all discovered that Mercy was a trillionaire.

She literally had so much money that she rarely knew _what_ to do with it all.

And since she rarely touched it at all for anything. It had accumulated quite a bit of interest over the years. Add to that the payments that she got from her job. It had been startling to find out that she _worked_ since she hadn't left the base in several weeks- any inheritances that she had come into since turning eighteen.

So of course _she_ could afford to take care of the doctor and nurse's payments among other things.

Still, it was shocking to them to learn these things about their fem _now_ of all times. But then, it wasn't as if any of them had really asked her about such things before bringing her to the base.

So that was more their fault than anyone else's.

After that Optimus had had the fem e-mail him a copy of the none disclosure agreement that the human's had signed just in case anything had accidentally been left out.

He may not know much about humans, but he understood _very_ well the concept of loopholes. Megatron had often used loopholes over the eons in verbal agreements. And besides, he wanted to make sure that there weren't any that the humans could use against them while Ratchet took them all on a tour of the base's medical facilities.

And once they were gone, Optimus wheeled on Mercy and asked in a slightly disbelieving tone. "You're a trillionaire? At eighteen?"

"Hn? Yeah." Mercy said before then looking at him and demanding to know. "Why do you sound so bothered by that fact?"

Optimus paused and then quickly backtracked a bit. "I'm not. I'm just surprised. From what I have learned of humans, becoming a trillionaire is quite difficult. Even more so for someone so young."

She cast him a slightly suspicious glare for a moment and then gave him a slow smile. "Nice save there, big guy."

Optimus didn't even bother to hide the fact that he didn't want her to be pissed at him over something so minor. So he just made a thoughtful humming sound before asking her about her 'work'.

Again, this was the first time he'd heard her say anything about _any_ sort of job. And call him curious...but shouldn't she be going it _frequently_? Like several times a week?

He couldn't imagine that her boss was terribly happy with her at the moment since she'd been absent for the past few weeks. Unless she did her work online with the laptop computer that Mikeala had gotten for her the evening that she'd brought her everything else.

She took a moment to think about what to say before she finally replied to his query. And when she did reply, it wasn't what he had been expecting to hear.

"I do something like pest control."

He cocked his head and regarded her with a slightly disappointed look since he had been half expecting her to be a doctor or something with her healing abilities. But he supposed that just because she had them- didn't meant that she _liked_ to use them. After all, she didn't like being the center of attention.

He'd learned that about her before and yet it was still something that tended to slip his mind on occasion as he heard her go on to explain.

"I even have a little alarm on my cell phone that lets me know when I'm needed."

She seemed pleased with herself and her explanation of her work. So he decided to let the fact that she was at least partially _lying_ to him slide. For now anyways.


	8. Chapter 8

Optimus didn't see hide nor hair of Mercy for nearly three days after that. Which was a tad bit concerning all things considered since he didn't know what she'd been up to recently. And he somewhat worried about her hiring more humans without any input from him.

He had been a bit busy the past few days dealing with an abrupt and unprovoked Decepticon attack and aftermath. So he and some of the others hadn't really been present at the base that much recently.

And the few times that he _did_ catch any sort of a glimpse of her- was when she was dragged out of her room by Sam, Mikeala, and Bumblebee.

Apparently the kids had decided that Mercy was spending far too much time indoors at the moment and they kept randomly showing up to drag her outside for some fresh air and sun since everyone else was gone or busy for the moment.

Which was nice of them, Optimus supposed.

And the fem usually went along with their humorous antics without much complaint. However after this going on for weeks, Optimus and the others began to notice the subtle signs of stress in her.

Well, perhaps stress was the wrong word for it because while she did seem rather stressed about something. She was also getting _very_ jumpy and twitchy. She startled easily. And though he wouldn't exactly say that the fem was growing skittish...

Even he could tell that something was definitely up.

It had been a week since Mercy had begun to display the signs of stress and skittishness, and Optimus was still cautiously observing her odd behavior when something finally happened.

To be perfectly honest, it was something that he nor the other Autobot's had thought would actually happen. Certainly not anytime soon anyways. And yet when it did- they wound up scrambling to do something about it.

It was nearing eleven p.m. that Tuesday when there was a loud and abrupt sounding **Boom** , like that of an explosion going off from somewhere deep inside of their base. Which was followed by violent shaking and the nearly deafening blare of their alarms going off.

Optimus had been in a state of recharge in his room when it had happened. And the second that he heard the loud boom, he was instantly up and on his feet, and throwing himself towards his door with his gun drawn.

Outside of his room, it was pure chaos. His men were running all over the place trying to figure out what the hell had just happened. And to be frank, they were _all_ fearing that they had just come under attack by the Decepticon's.

Running into the control room of the old ship, he was greeted by the others already trying to pin point the exact cause of the explosion that they had heard.

"What's going on?" Optimus asked as he peered over one of Jazz's shoulders to see what he was looking at.

"I'm not sure, sir." Jazz replied as he pulled up a section of surveillance video and saw nothing but _flames._ "Alright, that's definitely part of the damaged area. Ironhide, pull up video on area xxx-C13."

"I'm on it." Ironhide said grimly as he did what Jazz had just told him and pulled up the footage for that exact area and then froze for a moment before swearing. "Shit!"

Everyone turned their heads to look at him.

"What have you found?" Optimus asked/demanded.

"First of all," Ironhide started as he quickly slapped his hands onto the screen to block everyone's view of what he'd found. "Has...anyone seen Mercy?" He asked awkwardly looking more than a tad bit... _wary_.

Everyone took a moment to pause and look around as if expecting the fem to be there just like they were. And maybe they did. After all, they couldn't imagine the fem managing to stay in her room through that explosion or the shaking that had been caused by it and _not_ wonder what the hell was going on.

"I would imagine that she's still in her room since we haven't seen her yet." Jazz said as he pulled up the same footage that Ironhide had pulled up and was also attempting to hide so that he could see what was going on for himself and made a funny sputtering sound as his jaw dropped open.

Optimus peeked over his shoulder again to see what had him looking so...flabbergasted and felt his own processors sputter to a stop too. It was only long enough for him to see Mercy surrounded by fire.

Her long dark hair was pulled up into a messy ponytail, she was in her sleep shirt and nothing else. Her feet were bare, and she had a long steel pipe clutched in one of her hands. She had various bruises and cuts on her face, arms, hands and legs. Her feet were bleeding too from the look of it- though he could only hazard a guess as to _why_.

He was about to turn around and go and get her. After all, the fem seemed to have done something that she shouldn't have. And frankly it looked a lot like she had sabotaged the area that she was in.

So he was understandably _upset_ with her at the moment.

However before he could take his eyes off of the screen, he saw something... _odd_. Very odd.

The fire was moving like it had a will of it's own. He narrowed his optics at the screen for a moment as the flames gathered in one spot and then surged towards the fem as she got into what looked like a fighting stance, the steel pipe in her hand was handled a lot like a sword would be unless he was mistaken.

And she was attempting to fend the flames off and dodge anything that got too close to burning her. Optimus's optics narrowed in on the suspicious movements of the flames as Mercy did a one handed back flip away from being hit by them.

It was as if something was directing the fire at her. Flinging or throwing it in an effort to hit her and score a critical blow.

"Something isn't right," He vaguely heard Jazz say aloud. "Fire doesn't move like that."

Optimus silently agreed with his friend. Especially since he wasn't such a fool as to _not_ realize that there was something terribly suspicious about how the flames moved. It also wasn't lost on him that they seemed to be under an attack of some kind and Mercy was the only one fighting whoever or _whatever_ it was that had attacked their base.

"Ironhide, see if you can figure out what's attacking Mercy. Use infrared and anything else that you can think of. But I want to know what we're up against."

"Right away, Optimus."

"Ratchet, contact the human doctors. Mercy will need medical treatment."

"I'm on it."

"Jazz come with me." Optimus said as he turned and started for the door. Jazz didn't bother to argue any. He fell into step behind him the same way that Bee did.

All three mechs raced down the halls with their guns in hand, determined to reach their fem before something horrible happened to her.

* * *

Ichigo danced out of reach of another attack and landed in a crouching position against the wall a little ways off and glared at the hollow. She'd known that it was heading towards the base within _minutes_ of it's actual arrival. And that was only because her senses had finally managed to adjust to the EM fields that her...new robot buddies kept throwing off.

And she had naturally run off to see if she could manage to get rid of it before it caused any sort of ruckus that would bring the uncomfortable _attention_ of her new buddies down on her.

After all, they still hadn't figured out just how _non_ -human she was just yet. And to be perfectly honest, she would really like to keep it that way for a bit longer.

If only because of the shock value of the information.

Still, she hadn't expected the hollow to literally bust through she had no idea how many feet of earth and rock and steel just to get to her. Nor had she expected it to sound/shake things up so badly that it seemed as if an explosion had gone off.

To say that she'd been startled by the loudness of the sound along with the violent shaking would be a gross understatement. She had almost literally thrown herself out of the way _screaming_ when some of the ceiling had nearly fallen on her head.

And then she'd spent a good ten minutes screaming all sort of obscenities at the Hollow. Which had seemed to give it pause...if only for a second or so before it decided to go ahead and try to kill her.

Using her position against the wall to launch herself at it- she knew that there would be no real avoiding the flames it was using to try and cook her this time. And that was fine. She was ready to end this thing and go back to her room and collapse for a bit.

However, what she didn't expect was three of the mechs to suddenly come _clanging_ up like a small herd of metal buffalo. Which distracted her in mid attack, giving the Hollow the opening it needed to manage to smack her out of the air with it's tail.

She didn't even have enough time to react before the blow sent her flying into a piece of sharp, jagged, semi melted steel sticking out of the ruins from the ceiling. She gasped when she felt the metal pierce her flesh- ripping through bone and muscle to one of her lungs.

Blood welled up in her mouth and began to run down her chin as she tried to catch her breath as she gritted her teeth and thought. _For fuck's sake Ichigo, you've done things like this a hundred times before. Push the pain back, catch your breath, get on your feet and fight!_

"Mercy!" She heard Optimus shout. _Oh man he sounds pissed_ , she thought vaguely as a bemused smile curved her lips while he and Jazz both opened fire on the Hollow. They missed the first few times.

But that was okay since the Hollow was starting to scramble to keep itself in one piece while trying to avoid being shot. Which left Bumblebee free to come and help her while it was distracted.

Bee knelt down in front of her, his blue optics zeroing in on the steel piece protruding out of her torso and he made a slightly panicked sound. It was a lot like clicking to her ears, and the sound drew both Optimus and Jazzes attention away from their current task.

Trying to annihilate the Hollow with _extreme_ prejudice and avenge her 'death'.

"Bee! Status! Is she still alive?!" Optimus shouted. Bee made a few more clicking sounds and then seemed to snap himself out of his funk and called back.

"She's alive! But she's injured!"

"How bad?" Jazz called out this time since Optimus was smacked away from the Hollow by it's tail. He slid back along the metal floor, his feet kicking up sparks until he came to a stop several feet away.

Bee looked her over and then called back a 'critical'. But it sounded more like a question since he didn't know exactly know what was considered critical to an tiny organic.

Finally managing to catch her breath, she grit her teeth again and dragged herself forward slowly. Bee started floundering in a panic and resorted to clicking sounds again while he waved his hands around in an effort to tell her to _stop fucking moving._ After all, the more she moved, the more likely she was to bleed out faster.

She didn't care though. She was so done with the Hollow and everything else that she just wanted to _kill_ the damned thing and then lock herself in her room and wait until her regeneration kicked in and she healed.

The second that she managed to get herself off of the steel, she staggered forward a little bit and felt Bee's hands quickly come up to keep her from falling. She half lay in his palms for a moment or two- because fucking hell that _hurt_!

Having her heart torn out of her chest _repeatedly_ hadn't hurt that goddamned much. Still, she was determined. The second that she was able to move without blacking out or something, she pushed herself upright and then shouted.

"Optimus, Jazz, hit the floor!"

Both mechs hit the floor as she surged forward to keep from accidentally having to go through Bee and pointed her index finger and screamed, "Take this you bastard- _Cero_!"

Black and red energy blended together as it shot forward with such force that it nearly knocked her on her ass. Though to be fair, it had been a while since she'd used a Cero attack for anything. And usually she was at least _half_ dead when she did- so she didn't really care if she was knocked over or not.

But she cared this time since Bee was the one who had to catch her.

Still...nailing the Hollow in the head with the blast was all kinds of satisfying. So was hearing it scream before it disappeared entirely. Seeing the damage that her attack left in it's wake- coupled with having three astonished sets of eyes on her...not so much.


End file.
